The Infiltrators

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by Daniel Lawlis


  He was performing many sequences from the fourth and fifth of the Death Dances, as these were designed for situations involving large numbers of opponents. One of their chief principles was training the body to never attack more than a second or two in any direction before reversing, in order to keep as many opponents at bay as possible.

  He put his two swords over his head in an X shape, as he sensed an attack from behind, and when a club lodged there, he appreciated having followed his hunch. He stood and jabbed his right sword through a man’s heart before spinning around and beheading the man holding the club.

  He brought his left sword up to block an incoming club attack, but the combination of the weight of the club and his inadequate time to properly position his feet caused the club to knock the sword out of his hand.

  He leaned back, however, just in time to cause the club to sweep through air rather than crash against the side of his head. He immediately stepped forward and sliced through both the man’s right arm and torso, cleaving him completely in half.

  A club smacked hard against his right thigh. Upon contact he immediately lifted it and side-kicked the man right in the throat and then brought his sword down in a massive overhead swing that cut the man from skull to groin, a feat many a warrior bragged about around a late-night fire, but that was thought to be purely legend.

  A club smashed against Pitkins’ back, and he immediately went with the direction of the blow, somersaulting across the ground and then delivering a straight thrust into the belly of a man so fat Pitkins wondered momentarily if he would ever extricate it.

  He pulled it out just in time to use an upward slash against the chest of a man who was coming at him with an overhead club attack. He didn’t have time to position his feet for proper torque, but the slash still cut several inches deep in a long, two-foot gash that left the man hollering like a banshee.

  When his opponents made the mistake of crowding in too closely but without executing any well-planned attacks, he unleashed a series of vicious spinning attacks, and within less than a minute, bodies were strewn about.

  A club hit Pitkins on the back of his head, and though he immediately moved his head with the blow, he knew it had been a nasty one.

  He thanked the deliverer of that message by whirling around and hacking both of his legs off in a single chop.

  Yet, as soon as he did so, another club struck Pitkins in the back of his head.

  He felt no pain, yet could properly sense the seriousness of the last two blows due to the blood trickling down his scalp and neck.

  He whirled around, cutting the man in two and hacking a large chunk out of the man next to him. He properly sensed another blow coming towards his head, and he ducked, spun around and hacked the right leg off a man and then immediately turned around and jabbed his sword through another man’s stomach.

  “He’s crazy!” a man yelled. Pitkins noticed his opponents were beginning to keep their distance. They surrounded him, and he quickly spun, appraising his adversaries. It seemed they were down to a dozen or so. Bodies lay everywhere, but he suspected some must have skedaddled, as he didn’t think he had killed the full difference between the original army standing ten minutes ago and the paltry dozen men left.

  “HEY PITKINS!”

  Like a wild lion stopping its feeding frenzy to identify the source of a minor interruption, he glanced up towards the noise, and in a moment felt his strength evaporate.

  There Rucifus stood on the balcony with a large knife to a crying, bruised Donive’s throat.

  “DONIVE!!” Pitkins shouted. He saw her chest heave with a sob, but she didn’t dare speak, as the knife was pressed too closely to her throat.

  Pitkins saw a small adjustment in Rucifus’s line of sight. His muscles urged him to respond immediately to the threat, which he could tell was to his right and slightly behind. But his heart took over his warlike spirit, and after feeling a large crash against his skull, everything went black.

  Chapter 30

  Righty took his time on the way back to his new ranch. He figured it might be at least a day or two before Harold came back with pholungs, and so he might as well enjoy a little time in the country.

  He had expected to be bored as heck on the way back from Pitkins’ dojo. After all, traveling through the mountains on horseback to his main ranch wasn’t something he was about to try, nor was riding through bandit country to the east.

  He figured a slow stroll back to his new ranch, maybe camping underneath the brilliant night stars a couple times, would be a personal vacation for him and an opportunity for a little soul-searching.

  He rode back to his old shack that he used to call a house but that was smaller than Janie’s walk-in closet at his new place. He tied up Susanna and took a stroll through the place he had planted his first crop.

  “It all started here,” he told himself aloud.

  He walked by the place some young punk at Eddie’s school had hanged himself after a friend had fallen fatally from a large horizontal branch. For reasons he couldn’t have explained unless perhaps deep under hypnosis, he found himself climbing up the tree, and then, with his heart lurching in his stomach, he crossed the long, horizontal branch that had been the cause of one of those young boys’ downfall—quite literally.

  His mind briefly wandered to Eddie. Had he been too young to go abroad for boarding school? No, he couldn’t have been, because there was no being too young to get ahead in life. He had learned that the hard way, but Eddie would get some safe, cozy business job, and by then, maybe, just maybe, he would too.

  He climbed up the tree on the other side and found the small fort Eddie had built. “Little guy was obsessed with wizards, that’s for sure,” he said aloud, admiring the artwork.

  He wanted to take a stroll through town, maybe past the lumberyard, see what his old buds were up to, but he knew a trip down memory lane with them would end with ten empty beer jugs, a mean hangover, a resumption of his old habit, and probably a lot of tongue-wagging that would reveal quite a few things best left unsaid.

  The very thought of such foolishness made him realize it was time to get going. This town had little in the way of sweet memories to offer him. He had seen it as a pit stop on the way to greatness during early high school when he was just starting to dare to dream big, and by the time he was a senior he figured he would be living in an enviable mansion in an upscale portion of Sivingdel, married to Janie, and spending his days at the gym working on building the most legendary boxing career Selegania had ever seen.

  But instead Ringsetter had become his prison and—

  He began scurrying down the tree. The memories seemed to be increasing in intensity. This was a small town where small things happened to small-thinking people. He had way too much on his plate to start letting the virus that infested this place get into his system at a time like this when things were on a nice, upward trajectory but with storm clouds on the horizon. The men attacking his organization didn’t sound like cops or rival thugs. They were trained killers and probably connected to the mysterious guest at his ranch.

  Just what has he been up to lately anyway? Probably has half the men calling him “sir” by now.

  As he trotted across the horizontal branch, the thought upset him so much he slipped.

  He caught himself first with his left hand and then with his right, and unlike the skinny little runt who had taken the plunge from here, Righty was in tip-top shape, quite capable of squeezing out thirty pull-ups in a minute.

  He yanked himself up and then stood and walked cautiously to the other side of the tree, descended it in a manner suggesting his parents were orangutans, and then went sprinting towards Susanna.

  She was munching lazily on some grass and found nothing about the small town so objectionable.

  Righty untied her, leapt on top, and went off at a brisk trot, avoiding a full gallop only because of fear of being spotted by someone who might recognize him.

  As soon as he reached the
countryside, he pushed Susanna almost to her limit, but then eased up on her when he twisted around and saw the town was way back in the distance.

  Chapter 31

  Righty camped that night but reached his mansion early the next afternoon. He was getting ready to enter the house when he saw something moving off to his right. He glanced and saw Harold flying just barely above the trees. He was clearly trying to get his attention. Otherwise, he wouldn’t do something so foolish.

  He almost turned and went to Harold first, but he knew Janie was going to be itching to see him, and if she saw him suddenly go sprinting out to the woods after a few days away it would raise more questions than Righty cared to answer.

  As he entered the house, a servant told him she would go notify Janie immediately. Righty had almost forgotten he had a servant. She kept to herself mostly, and he had only hired her because she had worked there for the prior owner, and he couldn’t bring himself to let her go. Her admirable work ethic seemed to make clear she didn’t take her ongoing employment for granted.

  Janie greeted him warmly, and Righty was most appreciative of the lack of nosy questions. He volunteered that the new store in Sivingdel was taking off admirably and that he expected to add a new store soon.

  She looked deeply into his eyes and smiled.

  “I’m proud of you. You make it happen,” she added with a playful poke to his chest.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, and minutes later they were making love happen.

  Righty was beyond relieved when Janie said, “I didn’t meet you yesterday, Rich. I can read you like a book. You’re itchin’ to get back to town. Well, go on, but say hi to our little angel first.”

  Righty went over to the next room and picked up Heather. She smiled as he picked her up, and he sat there for at least a half hour just rocking her in his arms.

  He was now genuinely wanting to stay, but the allure of Harold’s pending message was just too much.

  “I should be back soon,” Righty said, planting a kiss on Janie’s lips.

  She went back to a book she was reading, and Righty was glad not to detect any resentment.

  Wondering if Janie might be watching from a window, he resisted the urge to bring Susanna to a gallop, but she trotted briskly to the woods.

  Ten minutes into the forest, Righty was beginning to wonder if Harold had flown away, bitter at having been made to wait a couple hours, but then Righty felt the familiar gust of air that foretold Harold’s landings.

  He had never been gladder to see Harold. Being land-bound even just for these last couple days felt like a couple years.

  “Harold!” he exclaimed jubilantly, and hopped off Susanna to go give Harold a big hug.

  Harold seemed to tolerate rather than appreciate the hug, but Righty didn’t care.

  “How have you been?”

  “We found six,” Harold said, cutting straight to the point.

  “Six?”

  “Six pholung chicks. That’s what you sent me for.”

  “Sent us for,” said a konulan, flying by his head, laughing.

  Harold shot him an annoyed glance.

  “Hop on; I’ll take you to them.”

  Righty leaped onto his back, and then Harold flew about fifty yards to the top of a large tree where around fifty konulans were racing back and forth, giggling with glee, dropping off worms for the new addition to the clan.

  Harold approached cautiously and then did his best to hover still so that Righty could get a good look.

  Six mean sets of eyes stared at him from behind long, sharp beaks that looked like weapons even at this young age. Worms were inhaled, rather than eaten, into the seemingly bottomless pits of these young savages.

  Righty reached his hand forward to pet one of them and just barely avoided a vicious snap.

  “Always so friendly?” he asked Harold.

  “So far, yes. I took a few vicious nips putting them into a large bag I brought, and I’ve kept my distance ever since. They seem to be warming up to the konulans better than me.”

  “They’re bringing home the bacon,” Righty observed.

  “They might not look like much, but give them a year or two under my guidance, and you’ll have an invaluable addition of muscle at your beck and call.”

  “I’m indebted to you, Harold.”

  Harold shrugged slightly. “You’re welcome,” he said, sounding humble but pleased.

  Righty looked at his watch and almost fell off Harold as panic set in.

  “Crap! I’m due for a lesson in Sodorf City in just one hour. You think you can make it?”

  Harold made a few authoritative clicking sounds to the konulans, which they seemed to understand, as they responded with chirps, and then Righty found himself hanging on for dear life as Harold began cutting through the air faster than Righty had ever seen.

  “So worried about missing a lesson?” Harold asked, a newfound joy in his voice that suggested he was game for anything involving speed and adventure.

  “Hey, I make this instructor mad, and there goes my instructor, and there go my combat skills, and then, someday, when I need them the most, as some thug puts his boot on my chest and raises a sword over his head, I’ll think to myself, ‘Man, I wish I wouldn’t have lost my combat instructor!’ Small mistakes, big consequences.”

  Harold continued pummeling the air without comment on Righty’s philosophical insights.

  Chapter 32

  As Righty exited the woods on foot towards Pitkins’ shop, he was relieved to see no exasperated Rucifus outside waving her arms about in truculent fashion. Now, if he could only find Pitkins to be without his newfound curiosity, he wouldn’t have to invent stories about why Susanna was nowhere to be found.

  He crossed his fingers for luck as he approached the shop. He found himself the curious one today as he noticed the door standing wide open. That was a first, as best he could recall, especially as there were no sounds of emanating conversation to suggest Pitkins was at the doorway in the process of excusing a client.

  He double-checked his watch and saw he was right on time.

  One step closer, and he realized something was badly wrong. The door wasn’t just open but practically knocked off the hinges. He immediately pulled his sword out and adjusted it to business length with a quick SCHHNAP!!

  He went charging into the store. It was completely wrecked. All the swords, daggers, and other weapons were gone; drawers were open and even scattered across the ground; and papers were strewn about the place. He crept through cautiously and found that even the sacrosanct dojo had been wrecked.

  A lump traveled up to the top of his throat as he saw the mat where he had learned so much venerable knowledge had been hacked to pieces. Once he verified the entire place was empty, doubt and confusion clouded his mind for a moment, before a sudden epiphany hit him:

  “RUCIFUS!!!” he shouted so loud anyone within a half mile would have heard him.

  Sprinting outside, he suddenly screeched to an abrupt halt as he realized he was about to sprint to the home of a multibillionaire with half an army of vicious thugs at her disposal without so much as a sketch of a plan.

  Don’t you think it would be a better idea to talk to Pitkins first?

  It sounded great for about a half second until he realized he had no idea where Pitkins lived.

  He went running back to the woods, as it could hurt little to talk this over with Harold.

 

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